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Feeding Nightmares: Madness, Hauntings, and the Kitchen of Horrors

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Consuming Gothic

Part of the book series: Palgrave Gothic ((PAGO))

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Abstract

Chapter 5 introduces notions of food horror as connected to spaces of food preparation and consumption, uncovering them as sites of madness, secrecy, and unpleasantness. The chapter explores the practice of cooking – and the kitchen as its main site – as a part of a destabilised narrative of Otherness and alienation. While discussing the preparation of food, and its long-standing Western cultural associations with caring, motherhood, and ‘love’, the chapter uncovers the everyday kitchen as an unexpected site of hauntings, madness, hallucinations, murder, and even cannibalism, latently situated in the midst of seemingly common scenes of food preparation. The chapter also takes a critical journey into the instruments of violence situated in the kitchen – especially the knife – as illustrated in a number of iconic horror films.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand

    Lorna Piatti-Farnell

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  1. Lorna Piatti-Farnell
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Piatti-Farnell, L. (2017). Feeding Nightmares: Madness, Hauntings, and the Kitchen of Horrors. In: Consuming Gothic. Palgrave Gothic. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-45051-7_5

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